California's licence plates

Just what we need

A solution to California’s traffic woes

LIVING in California mainly means driving, or sitting in traffic in hope thereof. This is boring. So what is one to do? For a start, there are billboards everywhere, many of them digital and flashing, lest drivers get distracted by traffic signs, pedestrians or other cars. Most drivers, however, focus on texting, e-mailing and talking on their mobile phones. (The preferred way to use an iPhone in Los Angeles traffic these days is to hold it in speaker mode like a tray.)

In theory, there's a law against that kind of thing, passed in order to avoid a lot of killing and maiming, but since Maria Shriver, the state's first lady, has been photographed at the wheel with her mobile phone, it must be all right. Still, there can be awkward lulls—between two text messages, for instance. Female Angelenos typically bridge these with make-up; males weave lanes. But there must be a better solution, and Curren Price, a state senator from Los Angeles, thinks he has found it.

The answer is electronic, wirelessly connected licence-plates. Why else would California have Silicon Valley but to invent precisely such solutions to humanity's problems? Digital plates could display ads whenever a car comes to a halt at a stop sign or a red light. Drivers are likely to love that in a state where many already pay to have special plates saying, for instance, BIGBOY. And California could certainly use the revenues, what with the $19 billion budget deficit. As far as safety goes, Mr Price thinks, the plates could help “by keeping a driver's attention focused on the forward-facing motorway”, which is surely preferable to being backward-facing.

A no-brainer, in short. The state Senate has unanimously approved a feasibility study by the Department of Motor Vehicles, as has the relevant committee in the Assembly. As ever, California drives human civilisation. Forward, we hope.